Under the patronage of His Excellency Eng. Hussain I. Al Hammadi Minister of Education for the UAE Khalifa University and the Emirates ICT Innovation Center (EBTIC) hosted two innovative programs this week aimed at engaging young Emirati talent in STEM fields and innovation.
32 Emirati students aged between 14 and 18 participated in the EBTIC Innovation and Entrepreneurship Boot Camp which focused on equipping students with the soft skills and business acumen needed to run a successful business including business development commercialization creative and presentation skills. A further 30 aged between 11 and 14 took part in the CoSpace Robotics program which offered a more technical focus with students learning how to program a virtual robot. The students were handpicked for inclusion in the programs by the Ministry of Education based on their interests in the respective fields.
The final day of the programs December 22 saw students showcase their learning through two team-based contests. 32 students the attendees of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Boot Camp presented their final business strategies to a panel of judges from academia industry and government. The winners of this contest was a team that consists of students Hamda Naser Mariam Al Zahmi Amani Ali Fatima Mustafa and Amna Mohammed. Ibrahim Al Kher and Amna Al Hammadi won the Best Outstanding Male Student Award and the Best Outstanding Female Student Award respectively.
Meanwhile students participating in the CoSpace Robotics program competed in teams to build a virtual robot within the CoSpace virtual reality environment. The winners were Khalifa Al Blooshi and Abdulrahman Al Nuaimi in the first place Mohammed Al Noor and Dawood Abdulla in the second place and Abdulla Mohammed Abdulla and Rashed Al Tunaiji in the third place.
“Youth programs like these are an important way of instilling a sense of ambition and work ethic in young people. They also help them to realize that launching a successful start-up or making it in the evolving world of programming and robotics takes hard work and dedication ” said Dr. Nawaf Al Moosa Deputy Director of EBTIC. “With our focus on technology we believe that we can provide these students with some real life experience and knowledge to help prepare them to make an immediate contribution to the UAE’s burgeoning economy whether that’s through emerging STEM fields such as robotics or bringing the next advance in technology to market. We’d like to thank everyone who was involved in organizing these two programs particularly our international partners.”
“We are proud to have hosted two highly beneficial and innovative programs at the University ” said Dr. Arif Sultan Al Hammadi Khalifa University’s Executive Vice President. “Khalifa University remains dedicated to ensuring that young Emirati students are inspired to pursue STEM fields from an early age and we were grateful to be able to work with international partners to host these engaging programs and look forward for further collaboration in this field.”
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